The Windham Mountain Beautiful Disaster

The Windman Mountain National Bike Race was truly a beautiful disaster. First the beautiful.

For the first 1.5 hours I was cruising along all right, feeling pretty good about climbing and descending all right. At this point I was around about 10th place, out of 40 semi-pro, riders which was a great ride for me.

Now the diaster.
Then after gasping for air my tire decided that it wanted a gaping hole. I was going through a rock garden and when I got out all I heard was "PSSSTTTT." I quickly throw a tube in my tire and I was off again, but almost immediately the tire was losing air. At this point I picked up the bike and just started running, I had about 3 miles to go, and I always like to finish. So then a kind racer was riding by asked me what I need, he then started throwing all sorts of air and tubes at me. I then tried to put his tube in my wheel, but the inflator he gave me was no good, it was not working! So then a miracle happened, Georgia Gould, one of the best female mountian bikers in the world was warming up for her race and she pulled over and give me some air (look for her in the Olympics this year)!!!!! I didn't realize it was her until later, but it was cool.

I finally came accros the line in 35th place, but I finished so I was happy about that. More importantely I felt strong, and I was riding really well. This weekend is the national championships at Mt. Snow Vermont, this is my biggest race of the year, so I hope I can feel strong here and have no mechanicals. Wish me luck, the Semi-Pro class is the biggest, with about 60 racers, time to lay it down!